It comes nearly a year after the government published its ICT strategy (30 March 2011), which outlined government's commitment to create a common IT infrastructure based on compulsory open standards.

Francis Maude, Cabinet Office minister, said: "We are committed to implementing open standards and want to create a level playing field for open source and proprietary software.

"Open standards for software and systems will reduce costs and enable us to provide better public services."

Liam Maxwell, director for ICT futures in the Cabinet Office, called on the IT community in particular to respond to the consultation.

"There was a great response to the UK government open standards survey we ran last year and we've proposed a policy that takes on board what people said. Some questions remain however, so this formal consultation is taking place so that we can stimulate a transparent debate and gather further evidence."

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However, open source specialist Open Business Associates, which has tried to engage with government on the subject over the last year, was sceptical about whether anything would come from the consultation.

"Let's hope it's not just more talk," said Alaric Jenkins, commercial director at Open Business Associates.

"We look at all the opportunities that get published and we've not really seen any real evidence of the government moving to open source. If they were seriously doing that they would be publishing tender opportunities through the usual channels. We can only assume they're still only talking about it."

We have been hearing for years how CIOs and senior IT professionals need to bury the hatchet with line of business managers and, instead of focusing on the latest bleeding-edge technology for its own sake, seek to better understand the overall strategic objectives of their organisations.